The line between greatness and obscurity is very, very small.

Life is too short to harbor any hostilities towards anybody.

I never want to fake it. That's my whole thing.

It doesn't mean that I won't be sexy or hip or anything like that.

The line between greatness and obscurity is very, very small.

In the last couple of years I've been picking up my guitar again.

But my attitude about it is I have miles to go before I sleep.

I mean, on the food chain, do instruments really rate? I don't think so.

Music should probably provide answers in terms of lyrical content, and giving people a sense of togetherness and oneness, as opposed to being alone in their thoughts and dilemmas or regrets or happiness or whatever.

I like that sense of we're all on the same page and trying to get the job done.

There was a time in American history when almost every white person knew who Aretha Franklin was.

I think you create your own hipness.

I adore being with Roberta. I adore being in her spiritual light. I adore being close to her talent and gifts.

I have to choose songs that represent my personality.

If you think about it, everything we do in life is set to some kind of music.

There weren't any white people in this country who didn't know who Gladys Knight was. Or the Pips were, as far as that's concerned.

I'm having fun just being a musician as well as an artist at this point.

I'd sing with Roberta Flack in a taxi if you called up and said she'd be in it.

For me, the other thing is not just a strong sense of spirituality.

If you have a Stradivarius and nobody to play it, it's just a Stradivarius. Or is it even that? It's nothing.

Trends don't mean very much.

I'm not angry at anyone.

If you think about it, Aretha did basically the same things that I do.

Every significant event that takes place in our lives is set to some kind of music.

It has to do with the fact that Ford, for all his greatness, is an Irish egomaniac, as anyone who knows him will say.

Governor, why wouldn't anyone want to say the Pledge of Allegiance, unless they detested their own country or were ignorant of its greatness?

The only greatness for man is immortality.

If we can but tear the blindfold of self-deception from our eyes and loosen the gag of self-denial from our voices, we can restore our country to greatness.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.

Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.

Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies.

Greatness, generally speaking, is an unusual quantity of a usual quality grafted upon a common man.

Just as a child respects his father even when he perceives his weaknesses and faults, so a German will not despise the old Germany which was once a symbol of greatness to him.

To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.

Greatness is not measured by what a man or woman accomplishes, but by the opposition he or she has overcome to reach his goals.

We feel unsatisfied until we know ourselves akin even with that greatness which made the spots on which it rested hallowed; and until, by our own lives, and by converse with the thoughts they have bequeathed us, we feel that union and relationship of the spirit which we seek.

Therefore let men withdraw themselves from errors; and laying aside corrupt superstitions, let them acknowledge their Father and Lord, whose excellence cannot be estimated, nor His greatness perceived, nor His beginning comprehended.

As machines become more and more efficient and perfect, so it will become clear that imperfection is the greatness of man.

A child does not notice the greatness and the beauty of nature and the splendor of God in his works.

When you close your eyes to tragedy, you close your eyes to greatness.

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.

Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.

No university in the world has ever risen to greatness without a correspondingly great library... When this is no longer true, then will our civilization have come to an end.

No, our greatness does not come from our government.

No one who has come to true greatness has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to the people, and what God has given them he gives it for mankind.

Now, we occupy a lowly position, both in space and rank in comparison with the heavenly sphere, and the Almighty is Most High not in space, but with respect to absolute existence, greatness and power.

I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.